School of Architecture Announces Exhibitions for Fall Term of Academic Year

Exhibitions showcasing the latest innovations in green residential architecture and the groundbreaking Las Vegas Studio of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in addition to the work of their firm will be on view at the gallery of the newly renovated Paul Rudolph Hall, 180 York St., during the first term of the coming academic year.

The first exhibition, “The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture,” opens on August 24. A traveling exhibition that originated at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. it draws on designs of internationally celebrated architects and features new trends, materials and technology in sustainable construction to raise awareness that a healthy and environmentally friendly home can be aesthetically dynamic and physically comfortable too, say the show’s organizers.

The 21 houses showcased in this exhibition are the work of designers from around the world, including Peter Carmichael from Australia; Kengo Kuma & Associates, China; Werner Sobek Ingenieure, Germany; Driendl Architects, Austria; Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architecten, the Netherlands; and, from the United States, Cook + Fox Architects, Rick Joy Architects, Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, William McDonough + Partners, and Jennifer Siegal of the Office of Mobile Design. Each of the homes reflects the particular environment and landscape for which it was designed, ranging from desert to seacoast and mountainside to major metropolis.

The exhibition, curated by Donald Albrecht, explores the five principles of sustainable architecture: using land efficiently and economically, exploiting the sun, conserving energy, keeping the indoors healthy, and respecting the earth’s limited resources. Visitors will learn how to put some of these principles into practice in their own homes, and will learn about such new eco-friendly materials as recycled glass countertops and coconut palm flooring.

Visitors will also receive a free resource guide with useful information about green architecture. “The Green House” exhibition will continue at Yale through October 16. “The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design” is organized by the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. and presented by The Home Depot Foundation with generous support from the ASID Foundation of the American Society of Interior Designers, Portland Cement Association, Benjamin Moore® Paints, EPA/Energy Star, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Opening on October 29, two separate exhibitions, under the title “What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio and the Work of Venturi Scott Brown & Associates,” offer complementary perspectives on the legendary studio taught at Yale in 1969 and its subsequent impact on the teaching, research and design work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, two of America’s most prominent architects.

The first exhibition, “The Yale Las Vegas Studio,” consists of more than 100 color photographs, slide presentations and miscellaneous original materials documenting the famed 1968 Yale “field trip” to Las Vegas with 13 Yale architecture students led by Venturi and Scott Brown. The groundbreaking examination of commercial vernacular architecture was the basis of the book “Learning from Las Vegas,” in which Venturi, Scott Brown and co-author Steven Izenour revolutionized the study of architecture. This separately curated exhibition showcases images and other documentation, much of it previously unknown to the public, from Venturi, Scott Brown and the University of Pennsylvania Design Archives. In presenting these photographs, the show’s curators, Hilar Stadler and Martino Stierli, aim to capture “unconscious moments” of the historic studio’s leaders, before “theory formation” made the Las Vegas trip into a watershed architectural event. “Learning from Las Vegas” originated at the Museum im Bellpark, Kriens, Switzerland, and was most recently displayed at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt.

The second exhibition, “What We Learned,” focuses on Venturi and Scott Brown’s critical contributions to the urban landscape and our understanding of it. Curated and designed by Dean Sakamoto, director of Exhibitions, with David Sadighian, the show offers a three-dimensional display of selected work of the Philadelphia-based firm, Venturi Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA), and reappraises key ideas manifested from the mid-1960s through today. Organized around five themes—Context, Mannerism, Communication, Automobile City and Urban Research—the installation is a collage of drawings, posters, photographs and text as well as furniture and fragments from early buildings designed by the architects. Among the signature projects represented in the exhibition are the Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia (1964); the NFL Hall of Fame Project, New Brunswick (1967); the Dixwell Fire Station, New Haven (1974); Franklin Court, Philadelphia (1976); Gordon Wu Hall, Princeton University (1980); Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, London (1991); Nikko Kirifuri Resort, Japan (1997); and the Capitol Building in Toulouse, France (1999). Materials for this show will be on loan from VSBA, University of Pennsylvania Design Archives and the collections of Thomas Strong and Judith Mauvaka, and Constance Clement.

The exhibition will continue at YSoA until February 5, 2010.

“What We Learned” will be presented in conjunction with a symposium on the legacy of the Las Vegas Studio to be held at YSoA in January 2010. Details to be announced.

Events at the Yale School of Architecture are free and open to the public. The Gallery is open to visitors Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.